Brown’s news: 31 firefighters paid more than $200,000

Jerry Brown’s campaign sent out an e-mail yesterday in response to a Meg Whitman ad comparing Oakland under Dao Mayor to Bell, where the city manager was paid almost $800,000.

Frederic Lawson, The Chronicle

Dao Mayor was a generous mayor

Team Moonbeam sent out a reply e-mail to the press, that included this:

The total number of city workers making 200,000 a year went up 700 percent.

WHITMAN LEAVES OUT WHO THESE EMPLOYEES WERE: FIREFIGHTERS. The 700% increase is misleading too. The number increased from five employees to 42, 31 of whom were firefighters. [Inside Bay Area, 1/29/07]

I went on Lexis to check the story to which the Brown campaign referred. Here is the top of the story.

OAKLAND — Despite repeated promises to keep salaries of top city employees under control, the number of city employees earning more than $100,000 has risen 47.5 percent in the past two years.

Perhaps more startling is the astronomical increase — 740 percent — between 2003-04 and 2005-06 in the number of city employees earning more than $200,000.

According to documents released by the city’s Finance and Management Agency, 1,158 city employees earned at least $100,000 last fiscal year. Of the 25 top paid employees, 21 are members of the Oakland Fire Department, including 16 who earned more than $100,000 in overtime alone.

In 2005-06, 42 employees earned more than $200,000, 31 of whom are members of the fire department. Just two years ago, only five city employees earned that much.

City officials said salaries had risen because of employees’ annual 4 percent raise, which is tied to the increase in the cost of living, as well as some merit increases and bonuses.

City

Administrator Deborah Edgerly, who earned $238,155 in 2005-06, including a $10,000 bonus from former Mayor Jerry Brown, said employee salaries were reasonable because of the high cost of living in the Bay Area.

Edgerly emphasized that the salaries were within parameters set by the Oakland City Council. Those regulations were revised in 2004 after a furor erupted over merit raises awarded to top managers in addition to 3 percent cost-of-living increases while the city grappled with a $30 million budget deficit.

Further down it reads:

In the fire department, four captains, five lieutenants and seven fire engineers all earned more than $102,000 in overtime.

My question: Are we supposed to feel good about the fact that under Mayor Brown 31 Oakland firefighters made more than $200,000 annually?